The Twins hope starting pitcher Bartolo Colon, who turns 45 next May and can become a free agent after this season, will consider re-signing with them.

“I think there was an eye toward this relationship that could extend beyond this year,” Twins general manager Thad Levine said of Colon’s signing last month. “But for a guy who’s had the illustrious career he’s had, you really wait to hear what their terms are at the end of the year relative to their desire to continue to pitch again.

“If he decides, come season’s end, that he has an interest in pitching for another season, I would hope that we would be a team that he would consider continuing his career with.”

Levine is 45 years old and a quick wit.

“This is my pursuit to get an age contemporary still on our team, so I’m definitely pulling for him,” he said.

Colon’s age is listed on paper at 44. It’s unclear whether that’s his real age. Regardless, the right-hander from the Dominican Republic, pitching for his 10th major league team in 20 years, has helped keep the resilient Twins in playoff contention.

In five starts for the Twins, Bartolo is 2-1 with a 4.02 earned-run average. In 13 starts for the Braves this season, Bartolo was 2-8 with a 8.14 ERA.

To date, that’s an astute signing for Minnesota.

“I certainly wouldn’t portray it as we were smarter than anybody, especially the Atlanta Braves,” Levine said. “I just think we looked at the track record of success that he’s had. We had our analytics guys take a look at what he was doing, to try to understand how different it was from the last couple seasons when he was having significant success, and ultimately they said there wasn’t a whole lot of difference.

“So for that reason I think we felt that there was a reasonable expectation that he was going to bounce back.”

The Twins sensed how motivated Colon was during a conversation with him and his agent.

“There were a lot of compelling answers with regard to how much he felt was left in his tank, and his drive to succeed, and quite frankly it meant a lot to us that he had multiple teams to choose from and he chose Minnesota because he felt we had a chance to be in a playoff race, and that was something that highly motivated him,” Levine said.

“I think for those reasons, and obviously that it was an investment for us at the major league minimum ($535,000)….that’s why we took the chance that we did, and you’ve got to give him all the credit. All we did was give him an opportunity. What he’s done to return the favor is he’s made the most of the opportunity, and he’s put us in positions to win in almost each and every one of his starts.”

With Atlanta, Colon gave up 92 hits in 63 innings. With the Twins, he has allowed 38 hits in 31 1/3 innings.

“I think since he’s come over to us, you see the value of him pitching ahead in counts and the need to put the offensive player on the defensive,” Levine said. “By being in ‘pitchers’ counts’ repeatedly, you get rewarded more often than not, and I think he’s been proof positive of that.”

Despite his age, Colon’s fastball has reached 92 mph, although he has been mostly in the 87- to 89-mph range.

“His average velocity was down a little bit when we got him, but we saw in his recent outings that he can go get 90, 91 when he needs it, and he’s doing it later in the games,” Levine said.

There’s also Colon’s popularity.

“We acquired him for his talent, but also for what we had heard about his clubhouse makeup, and I think you can see it’s remarkable how he seems to be beloved in almost every state he goes to by the home and the visiting fans,” Levine said.

The Twins, who have climbed back into playoff contention despite selling off all-star closer Brandon Kintzler, are not about to retreat, said second baseman Brian Dozier, who is the heart and soul of the club.

“Top to bottom in this organization, we try to look too far into the buyers and sellers aspect,” Dozier said. “No one buys into that. You make a couple moves, but at the same time no one’s given up. The front office hasn’t given up, either. We’re still in this thing. You’ve got to remember, we’ve got 50 games left or whatever it is (47). That’s a lot of baseball.”

The Twins have six games remaining with first-place Cleveland, including a three-game series beginning Tuesday at Target Field. Colon is expected to make his next start Tuesday in front of a huge walkup crowd.

Since his trade to the first-place Washington Nationals two weeks ago, Kintzler, 33, is 2-0 and hasn’t given up an earned run in five appearances and five innings. He has allowed only two hits.

Starter Jaime Garcia, 22, traded to the Yankees after winning his only start for the Twins, lost his debut for New York,
giving up five earned runs in 4 2/3 innings against Cleveland. After two starts for the Yankees, he is 0-1 with a 6.97 ERA.

Happy birthday: Tom Kelly, who managed the Twins to two World Series titles, turns 67 on Tuesday.

In May, the Twins dispatched starter Kyle Gibson to Triple-A Rochester, then again last month before bringing him back. He hopes those trips are over.

“I’m a big believer, wherever I am, that’s where God wants me to be,” he said. “If I get sent to Rochester, I get to talk to some young guys about what I went through, and maybe what the difference is between Triple-A and the big leagues. And maybe that’s why I’m there, I don’t know. But as a part of getting better, I try to just have a positive outlook on it.”

As a three-time all-star closer for the Twins, Glen Perkins, 34, who is testing his surgically repaired left shoulder at
Double-A Chattanooga club this weekend, had a fastball that touched 97 mph.

“I haven’t been there for a couple years, not after shoulder surgery,” the former Gopher said last week.

“We’ll have a bunch of freshmen playing this year, which is a little unusual for us — no seniors, basically — but they’re talented kids and they know what they’re doing,” North said while in Blaine last week for the 3M Championship.

The Gophers?

“I understand (coach Richard Pitino) is doing a better job recruiting, so we’ll see what happens,” North said. “The league’s not easy — you’ve got to have players.”

Mark Hamburger, who has thrown six complete games en route to a 12-4 record for the St. Paul Saints this season, isn’t impatient about getting back to the major leagues, where he pitched in 2011 for the Texas Rangers.

“I’m enjoying being with the Saints,” the Mounds View grad said. “I’m healthy and I’m just becoming a better pitcher, so there’s no rush to get back to the big leagues. It doesn’t matter where you are, it’s about the quality of our life, and my quality of life right now is just as good as if I were in the majors.

“The only difference,” he said, “is that my bank account would say I have more in it.”

Next Sunday, the St. Paul Saints will honor Roy Campanella, the first African-American to play for the Saints (1948) and the second black player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after Jackie Robinson. Campanella, a three-time National League MVP for the Dodgers, lived on Rondo Avenue in St. Paul during the 1948 season.

With the passing of former Twin Don Baylor and Darren Daulton last week, nearly 450 former major league baseball players have died since 2010, including ex-Twin Vic Albury, according to baseball’s alumni association.

Tom Lehman, directly off his 28th-place tie in last Sunday’s 3M Championship in Blaine, headed to Alexandria, Minn., where he grew up, to caddie in the Resorters tournament for son Thomas, who shot qualifying rounds of 71-72 but was eliminated in match play.

Bob Wilbur, son of late major league catcher and longtime Twins Florida Instructional League director Del Wilbur, will be in Brainerd, Minn., on Saturday signing his entertaining autobiography, “Bats, Balls and Burnouts,” at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals. It’s an interesting memoir of a baseball life that morphed into professional soccer and drag racing.

New in print: “Henning’s Gridiron Giants,” the second sports history book by retired Forest Lake Times editor Cliff Buchan, details the history of Henning High’s football team from its inception as a six-man program in 1939 through 2016 as a co-op with Battle Lake as the Otter Tail Central Bulldogs.

The St. John’s-St. Thomas Sept. 23 football rivalry clash, which is expected to attract a NCAA Division III record of nearly 30,000 spectators to Target Field, is recommended as a game worth travelling to in this week’s Sports Illustrated.

Incoming Gopher Josh Culliver from Omaha, Neb., allowed just two hits in seven shutout innings in a first-round victory over Nevada in the American Legion World Series last week.

DON’T PRINT THAT

If Paul Molitor, in the final season of a three-year contract, isn’t retained to manage the Twins, it would seem the Brewers would love to bring him to Milwaukee, where he built his Hall of Fame career. Brewers manager Craig Counsell is under contract through 2020.

Basketball coaches nationally and in Minnesota will be shocked if Apple Valley point guard Tre Jones on Sunday doesn’t announce he will attend Duke.

Twins first baseman Joe Mauer this season has a chance to become only the third major leaguer in history to win Gold Gloves at two positions. Mauer won three Gold Gloves as a catcher.

The others are Darin Erstad, now baseball coach at Nebraska, at outfield and first base, and Placido Polanco at outfield and third base.

The defensive awards are voted on by managers and coaches next month and will be revealed in November. Twin Byron Buxton is a certified candidate for a Gold Glove, but there are several elite center-fielders as competition, including Toronto’s Kevin Pillar, Tampa Bay’s Kevin Kiermaier and Boston’s Jackie Bradley Jr.

Besides a minor league prospect, the $500,000 the Twins received in international signing bonus money in the Brandon Kintzler trade with the Nationals should not be understated.

The Twins this season have had myriad international players play significant roles, including Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, Ervin Santana, Eduardo Escobar, Jorge Polanco, Adalberto Mejia and now, Bartolo Colon.

The Twins, who usually spend their annual maximum international allotment (in the $5.5 million range) of bonus money, have until next June to spend the additional $500,000 and intend to do it.

More than 30 percent of players currently on 25-man major league rosters are from outside the United States, and almost 90 percent of those are from Latin America.

Some international players are better prospects than first-round picks in America, for instance, Sano and Kepler.

The Twins, eager for a franchise shortstop, have promoted Royce Lewis, the No. 1 overall pick in June’s amateur draft, to Class A Cedar Rapids. Lewis, 18, who received a signing bonus of $6.7 million out of high school in California, was hitting .271 with six doubles, two triples and three home runs, plus 15 stolen bases, in 36 games at rookie league Fort Myers.

The Cincinnati Reds, who drafted California prep pitcher Hunter Greene with the No. 2 overall pick in June’s draft, have got to be
wondering what they got in Greene, who hasn’t yet made his pro debut. Greene is immensely talented (100-mph fastball), but his family wants significant input in how the Reds use him and when, and that’s dangerous.

First-year Rutgers offensive coordinator Jerry Kill, 55, the ex-Gophers head coach who has lost 25 pounds through exercise and eating better, told the Wichita Eagle he misses eating pizza the most. But, he said, “every once in a while I reward myself with some cookies.”

Blair Walsh, the ex-Vikings kicker whose missed 27-yard
field-goal attempt allowed Seattle a 10-9 playoff victory two seasons ago, has an $800,000, one-year contract with the Seahawks team that hosts the Vikings on Friday.

The Twins’ Aug. 21 game in Chicago against the White Sox will be at night, so it won’t be affected by the partial solar eclipse, which will last nearly three hours and be completed in the afternoon.

OVERHEARD

GM Thad Levine on the number of international players on the Twins: “Our team, as is, is a strong representation of the United Nations.”

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